THE PETER PACKAGE: A SAVING RESPONSE TO THE GOSPEL

El Greco's painting above
portrays Peter holding the Keys of the Kingdom. Jesus declared to Peter
in Matthew 16:19, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven;
and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever
you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The Apostle Peter used
the Keys to open the door of Messiah's Kingdom to the Jewish people on
the Day of Pentecost.

The following is a brief synopsis of my notes on Kingdom Initiation,
which is Lesson 2 of AD250 Non-Negotiables Of Apostolic Christianity.
If you are interested in learning more about this critically important subject click on http://ats.mrooms.net/login/index.php.
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THE PETER PACKAGE

Introduction:Repent,
get yourself baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, be added to
the Lord’s Church, and find placement in the family of God under
apostolic and pastoral governmental oversight...This is the
New Testament pattern for being born again, being translated into
Messiah’s Kingdom, and being added to the Church. We see this pattern
very clearly in
the book of Acts and throughout the New Testament!

One of the reasons for the present mess in the Church is that
many ministers have substituted the modern "invitation" system in place of what Ern Baxter called, “the
Peter Package.”

Advocates of the modern invitation system would have us believe that on the Day of Pentecost Peter declared, “Now I want every head bowed and every eye closed, and while
James dims the lights and John plays softly on the organ, if you want
to receive Jesus as your personal Savior, I want you to raise your hand
and pray this simple prayer after me…”

But this is not the pattern followed by the apostles! It is
not the way people were brought into Christ's Kingdom in the First
Century! Read the Acts of the Apostles. Read the
Epistles! There is not one place in the New Testament where sinners
were told to simply pray the sinner’s prayer. The means by which
sinners called on
the Name of the Lord for salvation was by getting themselves baptized
into the Name!

Peter boldly commanded, “repent get yourself baptized into the Name of the Lord Jesus.”
Peter commanded them to obey the Gospel; He called for them to repent
and come to the water that separates and divides…that they might be
saved from a perverse generation and the wrath of God coming on that generation,
that they might be translated into the Kingdom of God’s Son, and be added to the Church!
(See Acts 2: 37-41; Acts 8: 35-37; Acts 19: 5, 6; Acts 22: 16)

Present Invitation System Problems and Examples:

Charles E. Hackett, the division of home missions national director for the Assemblies of God in the U.S. said, “A
soul at the altar does not generate much excitement in some circles
because we realize approximately ninety-five out of every hundred will
not become integrated into the church. In fact, most of them will not
return for a second visit.”

In his book Today’s Evangelism, Ernest C. Reisinger said of one outreach event, “It lasted eight days, and there were sixty-eight supposed conversions.” A month later, not one of the “converts” could be found.

In 1991, organizers of a Salt Lake City concert encouraged follow-up. They said, “Less
then 5 percent of those who respond to an altar call during a public
crusade . . . are living a Christian life one year later.” In other words, more than 95 percent proved to be false converts.

A pastor in Boulder, Colorado, sent a team to Russia in 1991 and
obtained 2,500 decisions. The next year, the team found only thirty
continuing in their faith. That’s a retention rate of 1.2 percent.

In November 1970, a number of churches combined for a convention
in Fort Worth, Texas, and secured 30,000 decisions. Six months later,
the follow-up committee could only find thirty continuing in their
faith.

A mass crusade reported 18,000 decisions—yet, according to Church
Growth magazine, 94 percent failed to become incorporated into a local
church.

In Sacramento, California, a combined crusade yielded more than
2,000 commitments. One church followed up on fifty-two of those
decisions and couldn’t find one true convert.

A leading U.S. denomination reported that during 1995 they secured
384,057 decisions but retained only 22,983 in fellowship. They couldn’t
account for 361,074 supposed conversions. That’s a 94 percent fall-away
rate.

In the March/April 1993 issue of American Horizon, the national
director of home missions of a major U.S. denomination disclosed that
in 1991, 11,500 churches had obtained 294,784 decisions for Christ.
Unfortunately, they could find only 14,337 in fellowship. That means
that despite the usual intense follow-up, they couldn’t account for
approximately 280,000 of their “converts.”

What about God’s Word that says He is “able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy”
(Jude 24). Either He wasn’t able to keep these professed converts, or
His hand wasn’t in their profession of faith in the first place.

We are facing a fall-away rate of 84-97 percent. Some believe we need better follow-up. However, “following-up” with a false convert is like putting a stillborn baby into intensive care.

When did this problem (this new system) begin?

While there is debate over the exact origins of this practice, most
agree that it came into prominence in the 1830’s with Charles Finney
(1792-1875), who popularized it through the mourner’s bench or anxious
bench (some today call it the “altar”).

Dr. Albert B. Dod, a professor of theology at Princeton Seminary at
the time of Mr. Finney’s ministry, pointed out the newness of the
practice and showed that this method was without historical precedent.
In his review of Finney’s Lectures on Revival, Professor Dod stated
that one will search in vain for a single example of this practice
before the 1820’s. [4] Instead, history tells us that whenever the
gospel was preached men were invited to Christ—not to decide at the end
of a sermon whether or not to perform some physical action.

Finney believed that the new birth and revival were not miracles (i.e.
something only God can do) but were states accomplished by means of the
proper use of the will. He knew that to arrive at regeneration and, on
a larger scale, revival, the will must be excited to action. Hence he
developed the “new measures,” one of which was the “anxious bench.”
In many ways, this anxious bench is the mother of our modern day
invitationalism. Reacting to Finney’s method, theologian R.L. Dabney
commented: “We have come to coolly accept the fact that forty-five out of fifty will eventually apostatize [fall away].”

On the other side of Finney was the veteran evangelist Asahel Nettleton
(d. 1844), whose converts stood. For instance, in Ashford, Connecticut
there were eighty-two converts, and only three spurious ones. In Rocky
Hill, Connecticut, there were eighty-six converts and they all were
standing strong after twenty-six years, according to their pastor.
Nettleton rigidly refused to offer public altar calls, believing that
it prematurely reaped what would turn out to be false converts. C. H.
Spurgeon, the Victorian “Prince of Preachers,” thought similarly.

Billy Sunday, D.L. Moody, and Billy Graham are other evangelists who
contributed to the widespread acceptance and use of the altar call.
Certainly, Graham is the one who is most related to the contemporary form of the altar call in use in many churches today.

What does the Bible teach? Look at Acts 2:37ff ; please note Peter has just preached the Gospel of the
Kingdom, and now he is telling the Jews how to be saved. Ern Baxter called this, “the Peter Package”.

Five definite steps involved in full Kingdom Initiation:

First, "Repent…renounce all right to self-determination…renounce Satan, the world, and the self-life…" My friend Don Atkin defines repentance as “changing governments.”

Second, “Get yourself baptized into the Name of Jesus Christ…” This is something you do as an act of obedience. It is the way you
actually receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. It is the N.T.
way that you activate or release your faith. You may believe the Gospel
fully, but until you actually do what God commands, it is not faith!
Saving Faith is acting on the Gospel; it is obedience! And the way you
actually obey the Gospel is you get yourself baptized.

Peter was an apostle of the Lamb, commissioned by the Lord
Jesus Himself to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. Surely, he understood what
it takes for a person to be saved or born again?
He commanded his fellow Jews, "Repent and get yourself baptized into
the Name of Jesus Christ" or baptized into the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ.

Today, we must rediscover what Peter and the early apostles understood:

Baptism is the Kingdom means of salvation by which you put off the old man and put on Christ! To get yourself baptized into the Name of Jesus Christ, is to get yourself baptized into His death and into His resurrection! In order words baptism in water
is the way in which a person practically enters into Christ’s death and
resurrection which actually saved or regenerated us 2000 years ago!

It is the circumcision of your heart. (Baptism is the cutting off of the flesh and the receiving of a new heart. See Colossians 2: 10-13)

It is the way in which you are translated out of the Kingdom of Darkness and into the Kingdom of God’s Dear Son (Col.
1:13). (By the way, if we are already translated into the Kingdom of
God’s Son at conversion, then according to the Apostle Paul, the
Present Kingdom must be the promised Messianic Kingdom of David’s Son,
rather than some future earthly Jewish Millennial Kingdom! How many
Kingdoms does The Lord Jesus have?)

Third, after repenting and being baptized into Jesus Christ, then we are to receive the Holy Spirit…

This is God’s promise to the fathers of Israel. All the prophets
of Israel promised that in Messiah’s Day, the age of Messiah’s Kingdom,
God would pour out the Spirit upon all flesh!
This is the promise of God! It is one of the essential benefits of the New Covenant and the birthright of every believer! Everything Jesus did He did so you and I might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit!
(See John the Baptist’s testimony.) The Holy Spirit comes to live inside of all who obey the Gospel, as the indwelling
Christ. The Lord Jesus is presently enthroned at the right hand of God in heaven;
it is the Holy Spirit who actually comes to dwell within our hearts.

The Holy Spirit is the seal or witness of God the Father that we are the children of God!
When we obey the Gospel and get ourselves baptized, we are actually
entering into the New Covenant and setting our seal of obedience to the
New Covenant. When God fills us with the Holy Spirit, He is setting His
seal to the covenant. We don’t need a minister to confirm or assure us that we are born
again or saved. God Himself assures us by filling us with the Holy
Spirit.

Fourth, we are added to the Church…It is
important to note, that when we are born again or initiated into
messiah's Kingdom, we are immediately added to the general assembly or
the Church in heaven…
(See Hebrews 12:22-24). According to Hebrews 12, when we repent, get
ourselves baptized into
Christ’s death and raised into His life, we automatically become
members of Christ's general assembly, the Church of the first-born Son
of God…the body of the Messiah. You
and I don’t join the Church of our choice; No, no, the Holy Spirit
Himself adds us individually to the general assembly, the body of
Christ!

But after the Holy Spirit adds us, He puts us in the body of Christ as it
pleases Him! You and I must each find placement in a locality or city in an allotment
of believers (what we call a local church) under valid (properly related or connected) apostolic and pastoral oversight. (I Cor.12: 18; Psalm 68: 6, 18, Eph.4: 16; John 14: 1; II Sam. 7 10; I Peter 5:3) The point I am making is that Christ's Church is one, universal Church?
It is made up of tens of thousands of allotments joined together
through apostles and elders as one Church in a city, region, nation,
and throughout the earth. It is important for the modern Christian to
fully begin to understand that Christ's Church is really one general
assembly, before it is the tens of thousands, even millions of
allotments.

Finally the fifth and last step, after you
and I have been added to the Lord's Church and found proper placement
in an allotment of believers in a
locality (City), then we must voluntarily submit ourselves to the
God-appointed overseers of Christ's Church to be taught to obey
Christ’s commands. In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus commanded His apostles,
“teaching them to do all
I have commanded you…(Matt.28: 19-20).”

In I Timothy we learn that Paul the apostle left Timothy at Ephesus as his apostolic deputy to set in order the things that were lacking in the Church thereand to teach the disciples, the sons and daughters of the Kingdom of God, “how to behave in the House of God.”
Scholars observe the New Testament Epistles have both a doctrinal and
practical section, the practical instructing the sons and daughters of
God how to behave as members of the family of God.

For more detailed information about the vision of the Communion of Apostolic Churches, what we believe, and how we are structured and governed see page entitled Constitution.

Also, for details about becoming a member network or jurisdiction of churches, a member minister, and/or congregation you may write the CAC in care of the Presiding Apostle George Kouri at gekouri@mac.com.